Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Site Wide Search in acs-messaging or general-comments?

By copying from another package I got a working example in my earlier tutorial, but I don't have a full understanding of how it works so I'd be very happy if people could correct me.

First, we create a function that will return the url of an item (this seems like something that ought to be a global standard, like __name. I ran into the same need trying to upgrade the "About a user" page that shows all of a user's objects.). We also create a __datasource function but I don't yet understand why.

Now we create one or three service contracts (one contract and two aliases? What's an alias? Why?) Then we set up database triggers to update the full text search index whenever content changes.

I think that's it. Good luck, and if you figure it out better let me know so I can put it all in the advanced tutorial.